Shovel ready

After a decade of planning, ground was broken on the new Mary J.L. Black Library beside the West Thunder Community Centre on Edward Street Monday.

Coming in over budget, the total cost of the project is now about $5 million. The original budget was $4.11 million with one third funded by each the municipal, provincial and federal governments through the infrastructure stimulus fund announced in January 2009.

The city is taking money from the Renew Thunder Bay fund to cover the extra costs.

Chief librarian and CEO of Thunder Bay Public Library Gina La Force said the extra costs come with the city’s efforts to make the area a community hub with projects like replacing the parking lot the library will be situated on, adding bike and walking trails and replacing the children’s playground that has been temporarily taken down while construction occurs.

The new building will be a one-storey, 9,900 square foot facility with a large curved window to make it inviting to the community.

"The current Mary J.L. Black Library, while much beloved, has long outlived its lifespan as a building," La Force said. "There are hundreds of thousands of dollars of repairs to be made if that building was to be used as a library in the long term. It’s inaccessible. There’s stairs up, stairs down, no ramps. It’s very crowded and really doesn’t meet the needs of a 21st^t Century library."

And after working the city for the past year since the infrastructure funding was announced, La Force is excited to see something tangible now being built.

Expected to be completed by March 31, 2011 Westfort Coun. Joe Virdiramo said this will be one of the first libraries built in Thunder Bay in a long time and people will be amazed.

"It’s going to be a smart library, totally connected and it’s going to service everyone really, really well," he said. "I’m just happy it’s happening."

Library use across the province is growing year-after-year, La Force said, noting Thunder Bay is no exception.
"The library is a powerhouse," she said. "It’s a community gathering space. It’s often the living room of the community."

And for those who believe the Internet and growing digital world makes the library outdated is simply false, added La Force.

"We were early adapters of digital technology and we have tens of thousands of full text online journals, periodicals, everything from scholarly to items for children to help them with homework," she said.